


safe and sound

by gaynozomi (ashisverymuchonfire)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark Past, Idk what this is just take it, Light Angst, M/M, Mugging, Sharing a Bed, Swordfighting, Swords, Theft, Zukka Week, Zukka Week 2018, jetko that turns into zukka, zukka - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-12 01:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13536492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashisverymuchonfire/pseuds/gaynozomi
Summary: “Goodbye, Jet,” Zuko says softly, and something in his heart hurts, too. There’s a significant part of him that wishes it didn’t have to be this way. But it does. If Zuko is going to fully move on from the mistakes of his past, it does.“Goodbye, Zuko,” Jet replies grimly. Then he turns around and runs swiftly out of the alley, seemingly unfazed as the blood from his cuts starts to run down his arm. He doesn’t look back.—Zuko has been searching for a home for a long time.





	safe and sound

**Author's Note:**

> god fuck okay so i've been back in zukka hell for a few months now but this is the first fic i've actually managed to FINISH GOD and it was supposed to be done last week but this idea kind of got away from me and became much gayer and more complex than i originally anticipated sjkjfshdkksk
> 
> so ANYWAY this setting is technically an alternate universe but basically it's just like the avatar universe without the four nations/elements, bending, or spirits, and i imagine the city as being pretty much ba sing se
> 
> but yeah i think im gonna write more based on the zukka week prompts (i've been writing a long ass rewrite of the boiling rock episodes for a couple months now) so um!!!! here's my fic for zukka week day 1: swords

Zuko is not above stealing. He’ll steal an apple or two from a distracted merchant. He’ll steal money from people that he knows have more than enough. He once stole some bandages and medicine after being injured in a fight _—_ the shopkeeper had seen how little money he had and turned him away, and he thought it ridiculous to have to pay to stay alive. No, Zuko does not necessarily object to stealing on principle, not if it’s for survival, not if it won’t hurt the person being stolen from. But something about Jet’s suggestion _—_ to go out on a “spree of liberation,” as he so eloquently (and suspiciously) called it _—_ makes Zuko’s skin crawl.

Jet has “liberated” a lot of things in his life, but Zuko has never actually seen him do it. He’s never really allowed himself to think about it too deeply, nor has he ever asked; it’s one of those things that he’s been content to leave as a mystery. Now, though, he’s about to find out what exactly happens on one of Jet’s “expeditions,” how he gets those expensive-looking weapons and perfectly cured meats.

The night has just begun, the sun having set less than an hour ago, the sky fading from purple to dark blue to black as Zuko quietly closes the door to Jet’s apartment and steps out onto the dimly-lit street. Jet is standing a few paces to the left with his arms folded pensively, and though they both have their faces covered up to the eyes, Zuko can still see the wheels turning as Jet seems to run through an invisible list of potential victims. Finally, he turns to Zuko and beckons with one hand to follow him.

Zuko and Jet have been dating for almost a month now, but the only people who know about it are Jet’s friends. They met at a shitty tavern near the edge of the city, Zuko alone and Jet with those same friends. As it turned out, they were all in similar situations: they were all kids without families, just trying to get by. They understood each other, and that was something precious, something Zuko couldn’t pass up, even against his better judgment.

Zuko has been alone for a few years now, ever since his family died in a devastating explosion. Zuko was the only one to survive, but not without a permanent reminder on his face. He’s been living on the streets ever since then, working odd jobs and sleeping outside or in cheap little inns. Now, of course, he sleeps in Jet’s apartment, which isn’t fancy by any means but serves as the nicest place Zuko has lived in since his family’s demise.

Jet leads him down various side streets into one of the poorer, darker, more run-down areas of the city, the sort of area where one of the biggest concerns is being caught in the wrong place after dark. It’s an area Zuko has spent quite a bit of time in these past few years. In fact, it was while he was living in one of these areas that he decided to buy his dual swords (any weapons that his family had had were lost in the explosion). As Jet slows down and starts to more closely observe the area, slinking against buildings and hiding in dark spots, Zuko’s stomach drops.

“What do you expect to find here?” he whispers, trying to mask his dread. “There won’t be very many valuables.”

“You’d be surprised,” Jet replies smoothly. “And this place isn’t very heavily guarded. You can get a lot more with a lot less risk. I usually start here and work my way up.”

Zuko opens his mouth to say something else, maybe even to try talking him out of it, but before he can actually form words, Jet’s eyes lock on a target: a young woman carrying two bags of food. Zuko thinks he sees bread in one and fruit in the other—basic necessities. Her clothes are plain, and she looks tired from a long day. She is exactly the type of person Zuko would make sure _not_ to steal from.

Reluctantly, Zuko follows Jet’s lead as the woman turns down a lonely alley with few lights and no other people around. Jet darts around the corner after her and uses the end of one of his hook swords to catch her foot and trip her, a trick Zuko has seen him use a few times. The woman falls to the ground, the bags’ contents spilling everywhere. Accompanying the food are a few articles of clothing; it looks as though she just finished buying these things from a nearby market.

The woman gasps and glances up at them, terrified. She seems like she wants to say something, anything, but she’s frozen in fear. Jet swipes one of the pieces of clothing and briefly examines it, as if to determine whether or not it would fit him or any of his friends. Then he turns to Zuko, his eyes narrowed with expectation, silently saying, _You gonna help me or what?_

At that, Zuko breaks out of his horrified trance—he’s been watching Jet in shock, trying to process everything; he hasn’t even unsheathed his swords. Pulling down his mouth covering, he blurts, “Jet, what the hell?”

Jet stops what he’s doing and tosses the clothing to the ground. Without looking at the woman, he points one of his hook swords at her threateningly, a wordless demand for her to stay put. “Thought you said you didn’t have a problem with stealing,” he hisses to Zuko.

“I do if it’s from people who are just as poor as we are,” Zuko snaps, “if not poorer!”

“Zuko, you of all people should know that it’s every man for himself,” Jet snaps back. He doesn’t waste any time; he’s going straight for the jugular. “You and I, we’re outcasts, remember? We don’t have any allies. We don’t have any family. We had to do everything we could to stay alive. And we still do. You _know_ that.”

Zuko scowls at him and clenches his fists, making his anger clear. Jet’s right, and he’s persuasive, and they both know that Zuko is far from a saint, but none of that stops the feeling in his gut that this is _wrong_ , that he’ll beat himself up for it years down the road if he doesn’t say something _now_.

“No,” he says firmly, narrowing his eyes at Jet, feeling something akin to disgust rise in his chest, in his throat. “Look at this woman. She can’t be much better off than we are. This isn’t harmless petty theft. You’re practically mugging her. You’re not just doing what you need to do to stay alive; you’re _hurting_ people. People who don’t deserve it—people who didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jet stares back at Zuko, long and hard, his expression unreadable. Then he sighs and lowers his hook sword. To the woman, who is still trembling on the ground, he says, “Grab your things and get out of here. Before I change my mind.”

The woman scrambles to her feet, hastily grabbing the bags and stuffing her goods back into them haphazardly. Within ten seconds, she’s already rounded the corner, running home as fast as her legs can carry her. Zuko silently hopes that nobody else decides to prey on her tonight.

Once the woman is out of sight, Zuko turns to Jet and says, his voice a bit softer now, “Jet, you know I don’t care if you steal from merchants, from the wealthy, from people who have more than enough food and all the money in the world. But I want you to promise me you won’t do something like that again.” Deep down, he knows he won’t be able to stop Jet from continuing to do it behind his back, but he wants _something_.

After a long pause, Jet says, “Okay. I promise.” It’s quiet but firm.

Zuko, half-expecting Jet to refuse, doesn’t really know what to say, nor does he know what their new plan for “liberation” is.

As if sensing Zuko’s confusion, Jet answers the unspoken question. “You know what?” he says, actually sounding somewhat nonchalant. “Let’s call it a night, okay? We can go all-out some other time. The full moon’s out anyway—too much light.” He raises an eyebrow. “That cool with you?”

Pleasantly surprised, Zuko just nods and says, “Uh, yeah, okay. Lead the way.”

The quick walk back to Jet’s apartment is carefree and comfortable, almost as if nothing happened between them. On the one hand, Zuko enjoys it, feeling like everything has returned to normal. But he can’t shake the tiny, nagging voice in his head that tells him to be on his guard.

They fall right back into their regular evening routine as soon as they return to the apartment: share the same bed (both shirtless), kiss a little (or a lot), fall asleep—Jet with one arm draped around Zuko’s body. In the comfort and safety of the bedroom, the world of crime and violence and immorality feels so far away, like a distant nightmare, like a memory from long ago.

The voice in the back of his mind tells him not to believe it. So when he wakes up in the middle of the night and finds himself alone in the bed, Zuko knows exactly where Jet has gone.

He doesn’t know how late it is or how long Jet’s been out. All he knows is that it’s still dark out (despite the moonlight) and that Jet and his hook swords have mysteriously disappeared. A part of him hopes that it’s not what it looks like, that he’s wrong, that Jet’s not doing anything behind his back. It’s just that, though: a feeble hope, based only on what he wishes were the case, not on what he knows is the truth.

Zuko wastes no time—who knows how many people Jet’s already harassed and mugged? He pulls a shirt over his head and slings his swords’ sheath across his shoulder. Then he heads out into the night, running down the same side streets Jet showed him earlier, searching for any sign of life. He investigates every shadow cast, every movement glimpsed out of the corner of his eye. Just when he starts to think that maybe he was wrong, that maybe Jet isn’t out stealing from the poor, he hears a voice in the distance, yelping, “H-hey!” It’s followed by the clatter of metal hitting the ground.

Zuko bolts toward the direction of the sound. Turning a corner at the end of the street into a dark alley, the first thing he notices is the oddly dark sword lying on the ground near him, a few feet away from the struggle. The next thing he notices is that, just as he suspected, the instigator is none other than Jet, his face inches from the boy he’s antagonizing. “Gimme your money,” he says, his voice low and hostile.

The boy—darker skinned, hair pulled up into a short ponytail, pretty damn attractive—holds his hands up. “Hey, hold on a minute, I don’t _have_ any money,” he protests.

Jet shoves his knee into the guy’s stomach, and the guy gasps in pain. “You’ve got enough for that fancy sword, don’t ya?” Jet says with a slow grin. “Gotta be more somewhere.”

The boy gulps. “And what if there isn’t?”

“Well then,” Jet replies smoothly, “I’m sure that sword’ll fetch a fine price on the market by itself anyway.”

Zuko, who has yet to be noticed by either of them, unsheathes his swords, the sound making his presence known. Jet glances over at him and promptly freezes, like an animal seconds before it’s killed, only much less innocent. “Zuko—”

“Let him go,” Zuko interrupts gravely, taking a few deliberate steps forward. “I’ll fight you if I have to.”

Jet’s eyes narrow, wild with something between disappointment and anger swimming in their dark depths. “I thought you’d understand,” he says slowly, turning away from the boy and tightening his grip on his hook swords. “But I see now that I was wrong about you.”

“I could say the same to you,” Zuko retorts. “Fucking liar.”

Without much warning, Jet lunges at him, hook swords raised, and Zuko blocks them with his own dual swords, steel against steel, the _clang_ echoing through the alley. Zuko shoves Jet back, and as he’s reaching forward to strike with one hand, Jet uses both his hook swords to grab onto the end of Zuko’s, deflecting it to the side. Zuko manages not to lose the sword and swings at him again. Jet leaps backward, but he doesn’t completely avoid the blades; Zuko can distinctly hear and feel the cutting of fabric and flesh, though not very deep.

Jet glances down at the cut on his arm and falters slightly, taking a step backward. Zuko takes advantage of the opportunity and springs on him, making a quick slash at the wrist of his right hand. Jet hisses in pain, instinctively loosening the grip on his sword, and Zuko swings at it with all his might, successfully knocking it out of Jet’s hand. The sword lands on the ground only a foot or two away from the boy Jet was harassing, who snatches it with a clever grin and points it threateningly at Jet.

Jet seems to realize now that he’s outnumbered and lowers his lone hook sword, staring daggers at Zuko. “Traitor,” he spits.

Zuko shakes his head. “I should’ve known. I should’ve known the moment I met you. In a way, I kind of feel sorry for you—the world has been so cruel to you that you think the only way you can survive is by hurting others.” He shrugs. “You’re confused like I used to be. And maybe one day you’ll learn like I had to. But until then…” He puts his swords back into their sheath—he’ll clean the bits of blood off later. “Until then, I don’t want to see you around.” He pauses to let that sink in, and then he adds, “I’ll come back to your place tomorrow to pick up my things.”

Jet scowls wordlessly; he knows he’s been beaten. He holds his hand out toward the boy, who still has Jet’s other hook sword. “Gimme that,” Jet says.

The boy turns to Zuko, as if for permission. Zuko nods at him, and he holds the sword outward. Jet swipes it out of the boy’s hands. He gives Zuko a look of betrayal, of anger, but Zuko can see the hurt that lies beneath it.

“Goodbye, Jet,” Zuko says softly, and something in his heart hurts, too. There’s a significant part of him that wishes it didn’t have to be this way. But it does. If Zuko is going to fully move on from the mistakes of his past, it does.

“Goodbye, Zuko,” Jet replies grimly. Then he turns around and runs swiftly out of the alley, seemingly unfazed as the blood from his cuts starts to run down his arm. He doesn’t look back.

The boy breathes a sigh of relief. “Wow,” he says as he processes everything that just happened. “Thanks, dude. Zuko’s your name, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Zuko says, suddenly feeling his boldness leave him as he looks this guy over more carefully. He’s probably around the same age as Zuko, but a little shorter and lankier, with deep blue eyes and a pretty face.

The boy seems to notice the way Zuko is looking at him (Zuko’s never been good at hiding his feelings), and he smirks knowingly, but not maliciously. “I’m Sokka,” he says smoothly, his eyes twinkling playfully.

“Sokka,” Zuko repeats as Sokka heads over to where his own sword has been lying on the ground. He picks it up and casually wipes the dirt off of it. As Zuko watches him, an opportunity for conversation strikes him. “Why’s your blade so dark?” he asks.

Sokka smiles proudly. “It’s made out of the rock from a meteorite that landed out in the woods recently.”

“I...wow,” Zuko says in genuine fascination, staring at the dark gray sword as Sokka returns it to its sheath.

Sokka stares at Zuko for a second or two, looking like he’s considering something. “Do you, um,” he says slowly, clearing his throat, “have a place to stay for the rest of the night?”

Zuko shrugs without saying anything. He could probably find a cheap hotel or a nice spot on the street to sleep on like he used to, but the truth is that, once again, he doesn’t have any reliable place to stay.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Sokka says firmly. “You could stay with us for the night, if you want.”

Zuko raises his eyebrow. “Who’s ‘us?’”

“My sister and our two friends and I,” Sokka replies casually. “We all share an apartment not too far from here.”

“Oh, uh,” Zuko stutters, somewhat flustered at the offer. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to impose…”

Sokka waves his hand nonchalantly. “Nah, you’ll be fine,” he says, already starting to walk away. He glances back over his shoulder, as if expecting Zuko to follow him. “Well? I’m sure you’d rather sleep in a warm bed than on the damn ground, and I doubt your boyfriend’ll let you back into his place.”

That catches Zuko completely off guard, and he rushes to catch up with Sokka. “H-hey, how did you—?”

Sokka shrugs, that teasing, knowing grin back on his face with no sign of disappearing anytime soon. “Call it a hunch,” he says. “That fight definitely felt like a lovers’ spat to me.” He doesn’t mention Zuko checking him out, but it hangs in the air between them, unspoken. Sokka _knows_ that Zuko thinks he’s attractive, and Zuko knows that Sokka knows.

After a few moments of near-silence, with the only sound being the sound of their footprints as Sokka leads Zuko to his apartment, Zuko asks, “So, what made you decide to take a walk in the middle of the night, anyway?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Sokka replies. “I had a weird dream where food started eating people.”

Zuko snorts; he can’t help it. “Talk about revenge.”

“I _know_!” Sokka says, his voice going up an octave, throwing his hands up in the air. “But anyway, usually eating helps me when I wake up in the middle of the night, but obviously I wasn’t gonna do that this time. So I thought I’d take a little night walk instead.”

“If you were just taking a walk, then why’d you bring your sword with you?”

Sokka just laughs at that, short and sharp. “In case I got attacked.”

Zuko laughs a little, too, something he doesn’t do very often—he didn’t even laugh all that much when he was with Jet, and yet Sokka’s gotten him to laugh within half an hour of knowing him. That’s impressive, to say the least. “Well,” he says, “it looks like it didn’t help you out that much anyway.”

“He caught me off guard, okay?” Sokka insists, but he’s still smiling. “The guy’s stealthy. I admit it. But if I’d had my boomerang, too, he would’ve been in for it, I’m tellin’ ya.”

When they reach the apartment, Sokka lowers his voice and warns Zuko to be quiet, since everyone else is likely still asleep. Zuko can’t make out much in the darkness, but the apartment has a similar layout to Jet’s, though it doesn’t have as many rare or expensive items obtained under suspicious circumstances. Most of the things that Zuko sees are things he’d expect to see in most people’s homes—rags to clean with, some pots and pans, a few articles of clothing strewn across the floor. So far, the most remarkable possession he’s seen of theirs has been Sokka’s “space sword,” as he calls it.

“So, uh, we’ve got two beds,” Sokka whispers, “for four people, but Toph always sleeps on the floor.” He gestures to a dark shape on the floor of the main room that must be Toph. “Aang and Katara usually share the one bed because both refuse to share one with me.” He points toward the open door that leads into a small bedroom area. The other bed, decently-sized, rests near the corner of the main room, which also consists of a small living area and a kitchen.

Zuko raises his eyebrow. “Why don’t they want to share with you?”

Sokka smiles sheepishly, looking embarrassed but trying to hide it. “I just toss and turn a lot. And sometimes I accidentally steal the blankets.” He clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. “So, um...I can, uh, sleep on the floor,” he says slowly, “if...you’d be uncomfortable...you know.” Even in the darkness, Zuko can see a blush on Sokka’s cheeks.

Zuko shrugs. He genuinely doesn’t care if he sleeps in the same bed as Sokka; at least it’s a _bed_ , and he’s slept in much stranger places with much stranger people. (And there’s also the fact that Sokka is _very_ attractive, and Zuko would be completely fine with sharing his warmth. But that doesn’t influence his decision at all, of course not; that would be ridiculous.) “I don’t mind,” he says out loud. “Really. It’ll be fine.”

Sokka sort of smiles at that, seeming almost relieved. “Okay,” he says, making his way over to the bed. He takes his shoes off and leans them up against the wall, then pulls the sheath of his sword off his shoulder and rests it on the floor next to the bed. He lets his hair out of its ponytail and rests the tie on the nightstand, then climbs into the bed. The covers are already somewhat messy, but only on Sokka’s side.

Zuko takes his own shoes off and rests the sheath of his swords on the floor next to the bed like Sokka did. Then he awkwardly crawls under the blanket, trying to be calm and fucking _normal_ instead of thinking about how pretty Sokka is and how close they are. He can’t blow this.

“What’ll your friends think when they wake up and see a stranger sleeping in your bed?” he asks as the thought hits him.

“My sister might freak out a little, but other than that, it should be fine once I explain what happened. Don’t worry,” Sokka replies calmly.

Zuko rolls onto his side so that his back is facing Sokka. As he’s lying there, it finally hits him, just how much everything has changed in so little time. He broke up with Jet, and he’ll be on his own again, and he’s sleeping in the bed of some guy he just met, and everything is weird, and yet it doesn’t feel bad. He thinks he might even be okay with it.

After only a few minutes, Sokka whispers, his voice barely audible, “Zuko.”

Zuko rolls over to see Sokka sitting up, looking contemplative. “Yeah?”

“I have a question,” Sokka says quietly, “and you don’t have to answer it, but I was just wondering.”

Zuko takes a deep breath. Here it comes, the inevitable question, the question everyone asks soon enough after meeting him: the scar question.

But what comes out of Sokka’s mouth isn’t what Zuko expects. Instead, Sokka asks, “What did you mean when you said to Jet—that was his name, right?—when you said he was confused like you used to be? When you said maybe he’d learn like you had to?”

Zuko sighs in relief. Strangely enough, it feels easier to him to answer this question than it does to answer the scar question. Maybe it’s because he’s made peace with his past, with his mistakes. But he still hasn’t made peace with his family’s brutal deaths, especially his mother’s; he was closest to her. He doesn’t think he’ll ever make peace with it.

Zuko sits up on his elbows. “After I...became homeless, I did a lot of things that I regret. Things like what Jet was doing. I was angry at the world, and sometimes I think I still am. I don’t rely on it anymore, but I did then. I stole food from people who were starving because I didn’t care. I thought that I was better than them, that I deserved food more than they did. I got into fights with anyone who so much as looked at me the wrong way. A lot of them were kids or teenagers. One was probably around ten or eleven, and I think I was fourteen.” He sighs, remembering all the bloody noses, bruises, deep cuts, and broken bones he’s given people over the last few years.

“It got worse before it got better, especially after I got my swords. I mugged poor, innocent people. You would’ve wondered why I never got an apartment or anything, what with all the money I stole, not to mention the odd jobs I worked sometimes. I think it was because I didn’t want to stay in the same place. I liked running around with nowhere to be and everywhere to go, and besides, it would’ve been easier for other people to trace me if I stayed in one place, instead of committing a crime and then disappearing. I think I must’ve slept in every hotel in the city, except the really high-end ones.”

Sokka watches and listens, not judging, at least not openly. His gaze is intent and sincere. “What changed?” he says softly. “What made you stop?”

Zuko sits up more, leaning the pillow up against the wall and then resting his back against it. “It happened not too long after I turned fifteen. One evening there was this awful fire in another section of the city that destroyed several houses, and that night, across the street from where the fire had been, I saw this little kid sitting on the curb, all curled up into a ball and crying. He was maybe eight or nine. I remember not wanting to care. I remember just wanting to walk away and forget about it, because it wasn’t my problem. But I had a bad feeling about why he was crying, so I went over to him.” He closes his eyes briefly, imagining it, remembering every detail.

“He didn’t notice me at first, and I didn’t know what to say, so I just kind of sat down next to him, and that’s when he looked up at me. He asked me what I was doing, and I honestly didn’t really know, so I told him that I saw him crying and felt like I couldn’t just leave him there, which was the truth. When I looked at him closer, I realized he was partially covered in soot with a couple of small burns. He told me that his parents hadn’t made it out of the fire, that his home and his family were all gone and he didn’t know what to do. That was the first time in a long time that I’d felt sympathy for anyone. I saw myself in this kid, and I realized then that I didn’t want him to grow up hating the world and everyone in it. So I turned to him, looked him right in the eye, and told him to promise me he would never hurt someone for no reason. I remember how confused he was, because to him, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the fire. I explained to him that when you go through something hard, sometimes it makes you bitter and angry, and I told him that I didn’t want that to happen to him. So he nodded and said that he promised, and then I gave him a bunch of money that I’d stolen the night before, and I told him to find someone that would help him, like a neighbor or an uncle or a family friend or something. He said he’d try and ran away, and then I sat down on the curb where he’d been sitting and thought about everything I’d done.

“It was hard to go through all those victims and put myself in their situations, but I did it. It was like seeing that kid had opened the floodgates and made me able to care about people again. Up until then, I think I’d locked my heart up. I never allowed myself to feel anything other than hatred and anger, because anything else made me weak.”

There’s a stretch of silence after Zuko finishes as Sokka seems to process everything. Then he says, gently, his eyes soft, “Is that what happened to you? With the fire?”

Zuko bites his lip as he remembers hearing something burning, as he remembers looking through the little window in one of the doors with his left eye just seconds before the explosion. He doesn’t look at Sokka when he says it. “Something very similar. Yeah.”

“I...I’m sorry,” Sokka says, sounding genuine. “Katara and I lost our mother six years ago.” He reaches his hand out tentatively, his gaze filled not with pity but with understanding. Normally, Zuko would shy away. Normally, the scar is off-limits. But this is far from normal.

Sokka pauses right before his hand reaches Zuko’s face, as if silently asking permission. Zuko nods. “You can touch it.”

Sokka moves closer to Zuko and rests his hand on Zuko’s cheek, his fingers feeling the burned flesh. They’re so close now, only inches away, and all Zuko has to do is lean forward and bridge the gap.

“Zuko,” Sokka says, his hand never moving, “I don’t know what exactly it is about you, but I feel...close to you for some reason. Even when I first saw you fight with Jet, I was drawn to you.”

Zuko’s heart starts to beat faster. “I, uh, I could say the same to you.”

And then they’re kissing.

It’s soft and slow, gentle and tender, Sokka’s fingers lightly brushing against Zuko’s skin. Zuko drapes his arms over Sokka’s shoulders, sighing when Sokka runs his tongue across Zuko’s bottom lip. It’s bliss, but not an energized, ecstatic bliss, like the way kissing Jet felt like. It’s more of a glowing sort of bliss, a tranquil and safe sort of bliss, warm but not scorching. Whereas kissing Jet felt like fireworks, hot and wild but short-lived, kissing Sokka feels like a hearth—like coming home.

When they break away, both of them mildly out of breath, Sokka kind of laughs and says, “Well, now I know I wasn’t misreading the signals or anything.”

He’s referring to Zuko checking him out, and Zuko’s face heats up a little. “Well, yeah, I guess I’ve never really been the best at subtlety.”

Sokka just smiles and says, “Would it be okay if I...saw you again sometime?”

Now Zuko’s definitely blushing. “I, uh, yeah,” he stutters. “Of course.”

Across the room, an annoyed voice groans, “Great performance, lovebirds; now will you _please_ go to sleep?”

Sokka and Zuko both jump. Zuko doesn’t think he’s ever been more embarrassed in his life. One of Sokka’s friends—the one who sleeps on the floor, Toph, if he remembers correctly—is awake. He doesn’t know how much she’s heard, but apparently, she’s heard enough.

“Toph!” Sokka hisses. “Way to ruin the moment!”

“Way to ruin my sleep,” Toph retorts. “Your gross kissing noises interrupted my dream. This guy better be cute.”

“I—he is!” Sokka says, his voice cracking, also clearly embarrassed. Zuko tries not to smile (and fails miserably).

“I don’t trust your opinion,” Toph replies bluntly. “I’ll ask Katara in the morning.”

Zuko looks over at Sokka quizzically. “Can’t she just decide for herself?” he whispers.

“She’s blind,” Sokka explains. “She has no idea if you’re cute or not.”

“Guys, what’s going on?” another unfamiliar voice asks. Someone steps out from the other bedroom into the main room and turns a nearby lamp on: a girl who looks a lot like Sokka, but a little bit younger—his sister, most likely. “Sokka, who’s—?”

“Sokka’s new boyfriend,” Toph interrupts from her place on the floor.

“He’s not my—we just met!” Sokka sputters, blushing.

“Yeah, but that didn’t stop either of you from pouring your hearts out to each other. And then making out.”

“We were not _making out_!” Sokka insists, his voice going up an octave again; Zuko thinks it’s cute. “My tongue and Zuko’s tongue didn’t meet _once_!”

Another person steps out of the bedroom and into the main room, a younger boy with black hair. He rubs his eyes. “Okay, guys, you know I’d prefer it if we didn’t argue at all, but if we have to, can’t we do it after sunrise?” Then he glances over at the bed and, noticing Zuko, raises an eyebrow. “Um, Sokka, I’m not judging or anything, but why is there a random guy with a scar in your bed?”

“Can we _please_ just discuss this in the morning?” Sokka groans. “This guy saved me from his ex-boyfriend who was trying to mug me and he needed a place to stay so I told him he could sleep here for the night. And I’m probably gonna keep hanging out with him, so be nice.”

“Katara, I want your honest opinion,” Toph says to the other girl. “Is this guy cute?”

Katara seems to think for a moment, and Zuko tries to hide his self-consciousness. Finally, she says, “Um, yeah, actually, he’s not bad-looking.”

“Great. That’s all I needed to know,” Toph says. “Now can we all please go back to sleep?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” the boy—Aang—says, turning around and heading back into the bedroom. After giving Sokka a skeptical look, Katara turns the light back off and follows Aang.

“I’m sorry for them,” Sokka says immediately. “They’re nice, I swear, but they don’t know you and it’s the middle of the night and they’re cranky.”

“I can still hear you, you know,” Toph grumbles.

Sokka ignores her. “Anyway, um, we should...probably get some rest,” he says slowly. “It’s been a long night. I can give you a proper introduction in the morning.”

Zuko just smiles a little and lies back down; this time, though, he’s turned toward Sokka, not away from him. “You know,” he says, “you and your friends...almost feel like a family of sorts.”

Sokka shrugs, but he’s smiling, too. “We are.”

Zuko hasn’t had a family in so long.

“Maybe one day,” Sokka says, his voice soft, “you can be a part of it, too.”

That night, Zuko sleeps better than he has in a long time, probably since before his family died. He revels in the feeling of Sokka’s warm body next to his. When he was with Jet, it felt good. But when he’s with Sokka, it feels _right_ , like finding something that he thought he’d lost forever.

Like coming home.


End file.
